Yuri Milner: The New Establishment

AGE: 50. last year’s ranking: 23. STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Silicon Valley wags scoffed when the Moscow-based venture capitalist, who is backed by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, poured $200 million into Facebook in 2009—at a then sky-high valuation of $10 billion—as an obvious case of “dumb money.” Three years later, Facebook is worth roughly four times that much, and Milner’s other early bets—on Twitter and Spotify—look smart too. FIRST ACT: Milner’s first technology company, the e-mail service Mail.ru, went public in London at the end of 2010. Earlier this year, Milner stepped down from Mail.ru’s board to focus on investing. scientific bona fides: This year, Milner, who once studied theoretical physics himself, announced the winners of the inaugural Fundamental Physics Prize, awarding a total of $27 million in prizes, divided among nine recipients. At $3 million apiece, the monetary value of the new awards dwarfs the Nobel Prize award, which is about $1.2 million, often split. YEAR AHEAD: →